


The Quarter Master is Missing

by LittleSpider



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Beaten Merlin, Caring Eggsy, Clever bastard Merlin, FIx It, Gen, Harry Lives, Hurt Harry Hart, Hurt Merlin, Kidnapped Merlin, M/M, Peril, Whump, Worried Eggsy Unwin, Worried Harry Hart, bionic eye harry, clever Merlin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 20:02:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6624295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSpider/pseuds/LittleSpider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin has never really been one to stray from his position at HQ, but when he disappears one night. Kingsman mounts a search and rescue like no other...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Quarter Master is Missing

It was a chance remark from Morgana that had peaked Harry’s interest.

  After all, he had seen Merlin that morning after having his Bionic eye repaired, and him not being in his office wasn’t specifically unusual. Merlin did occasionally leave the safety of it.

But it was what she had said that had made Harry give it a second thought.

Harry had called that evening to query whether he should apply another dose of ‘artificial tears’ to his left prosthetic when Morgana answered the call instead of Merlin saying that he had popped out a few hours ago.

  Merlin didn’t just ‘Pop-Out’ of HQ. 

Merlin _WAS_ HQ.

  _Omnipresent. Omnipotent. Omniscient._

Harry had thought for a moment, recalling of Merlin had made mention of leaving HQ and drawing a blank pressed his assistant a little more.

“...So is he at the shop?” Harry asked.

“No...” came the Midlands-inflected drawl. “...He left the grounds around 14:00. Ain’t seen him since.”

Harry found this a very odd move. But again, Merlin was a grown man. No need to panic.

\-----

Panic set in around Three in the morning when he received a call from Morgana who was wondering if Harry, the reigning Arthur had seen Merlin yet...

  And Harry began to make inquiries.

He questioned the other Knights, roused Cedric from his slumber and queried if he had seen the Quartermaster at the shop.

He had tried every form of communication he knew Merlin used, from his direct dial, to his Kingsman issue spectacles, to a burner phone he used when ‘on annual leave'.

All drew a blank.

He authorized a search of the  _Carmarthen chambers_ , Merlin’s permanent residence within HQ and almost got in a cab to head to HQ personally before Eggsy arrived at his home and asked why his tablet was vibrating every twenty seconds.

After settling Harry with a drink, Eggsy listened to Harry break confidentiality rules and spoke about his oldest friend, and how he was AWOL.

Eggsy concurred, that despite not knowing the man well, it was very strange and promised to help Harry find him.

\---------------

  A rough night of sleep poured into a day where the light was too bright and assembling the Kingsman was an oddly morose affair, particularly without the Quartermaster stood nearby with his clipboard and occasional comments.

All obvious trains of thought had been allowed to leave the station but had been halted at familiar red lights.

  Merlin, being privy to most secrets that not all Kingsmen would ever know, was not given a tracker, not a permanent one, in any case.

Something that would permanently identify and trace his movements that could be used by someone to locate some of the most well protected places in Kingsman.

Places that Merlin would frequent often. So tracing him was not possible.

  Any equipment taken out of HQ without authorization, such as tablets, tactile-clipboards, even mobile phones would either be wiped after being removed from the secure radius, or in some cases self-detonate. So that was a non-starter.

Security cameras lost Merlin as he set out in his usual field-jacket, carrying no cases, nor bags to indicate a long stay, and did not pick him up again.

_It was as if the man had vanished._

  Eggsy watched as Harry sighed dejectedly. The other Kingsman looking to their King who had exhausted all avenues of exploration long before any of them had sat at that table.

Harry turned the case over to Tristan and Mordred with the simple instruction.

‘ _Bring him Back’_

\-------------

It was at 7pm that evening when Harry was going over everything for the sixteenth time as Eggsy stood nearby, listening for the fifteenth time, when Eggsy made the rather ludicrous suggestion that maybe Merlin had a secret tracker up his arse.

Something Eggsy hoped would lighten the mood.

Harry remembered something.

  In the late noughties, there had been a test tracker that Merlin himself had volunteered for, given the amount of refusals among active agents. It was a tracker that had been fitted like a filling and upon applying pressure, such as extraction, or even gritting ones teeth, it would activate and send a remote distress signal to the HQ.

It had been binned after the idea of infection and pain from it had outweighed the pros...but Merlin had never had his removed, as far as Harry remembered as he had expressed a desire to retain it as a ‘ _party piece_ ’.

He had called Morgana, who at this point was sounding gradually more and more like she had severe hay-fever when she picked up the call and asked her to check for the tracker’s activity.

“ _Dormant_...” came the thick reply.

  Harry sighed and threw his glasses across the room, rubbing his eyes aggressively as Eggsy put his hand on his back and offered to make him some tea.

\----

By two am, a headache that had begun as a steady throb in his left eye had began to claim his remaining shreds of patience as Harry sat, the heel of his left hand pressed hard into his eye socket and Eggsy suggested Harry was sleep-deprived and needed rest.

  How could he rest with his best friend out there?

Completely off the grid, no news from Tristan nor Mordred.

_But God, this headache..._

The pain seemed to burn and buzz into his skull like some sort of bone-saw.

Eggsy helped Harry up reluctantly but Harry didn't quite make it and instead collapsed to the floor, holding his eye.

Eggsy in panic reached for the glasses that had been left in disgrace in the corner of the room as Harry groaned in pain, holding his head, the pain from his left eye seeming to burr in sequence against the metal plate in his skull.

Eggsy held his hand, brushing Harry's hair out of his face, wondering if he was about to have a seizure when Harry's eyes sprang open.

“...It's...code...It's a code...” he gasped.

Eggsy's brow contorted with confusion before grabbing a copy of the times and a pen and handing it to Harry who scrawled in the thin margain what looked like Morse Code.

The second Harry had seen what he had written, he groaned in relief, and sagged back against the floor, breathing heavily, leaving Eggsy to slide on the glasses onto his own face to look at the mix of hastily scribbled code which rapidly translated itself on the HUD for him to see.

_ ' _ _51°30′21.6″N 0°3′37.2″W / 51.506000°N—London Docklands'_

_“ The Docks, Harry. He's at the fuckin' docks!”_

_ Harry looked up at Eggsy, still recovering from the agony in the left half of his face that had suddenly abated._

_“...Inform Tristan and Mordred...” he panted before giving a vague smile._

_ \----- _

  
  


Harry received the call at 6:20 AM that Merlin had been recovered and was being transferred to HQ. Tristan and Mordred had found him in an abandoned warehouse at the docks that had been recently evacuated.

He wasted no time, quickly showered, shaved and caught a cab to the shop before heading to the shuttle that would take him directly to HQ.

He called Morgana en-route to gauge the situation before he got there and the tell-tale stab of misery in her voice that she barely managed to conceal told him that it was much worse than he had suspected.

Arriving, he was greeted by Bors who had stepped in to take over Quartermaster duties and was also dutifully providing sympathy to the red-cheeked assistant who had obviously seen Merlin arrive as she sat, her shoulders slumped, staring into a mug of half-drunk milky tea.

He made his way towards the medical unit he had spent far too much time in the last year, and nodded to _Morgan Tud,_ the Kingsman physician, steeling himself for the worse.

  
  


\---------

It was worse than he had imagined.

Morgan Tud had reeled off the injuries as he gazed at the man in the bed who seemed so utterly out of place there.

Concussion, the heavy bruising around the front of his head was more than obvious about that.

Internal bruising, that was mostly hidden under the thin paper gown.

Burns, mostly based on the torso, possibly caused by metal implements. Marked on his body by the bumps where sterile gauze was now strapped.

Lacerations. Striped across the lower legs and upper thighs. Though seemed to be mercifully superficial given the fact that he wasn't on any bloods.

Harry sighed deeply, rubbing his forehead whilst studying the face that he knew, now marked with brown and yellow hues, lips that he had seen pen-lids tap against whilst he was working on a problem, now split and dry. His eyes that seemed incomplete without their usual frames now puffy and swollen.

What the hell had they done to him...

Why...?

“...What's his prognosis?” he asked.

“The scans show concussion, though nothing long term. Thankfully...” came the Welshman's measured tones. “We're keeping him sedated, for comfort's sake.” he continued. “He won't be fit for an chat until at least tomorrow, Harry.”

Harry nodded.

“...I don't suppose any of his teeth were extracted, were they?”

“...No.”

Harry nodded.

“...I'll be taking my usual suite.” Morgan replied. “Stay on sight, keep an eye on him until he's out of the woods.”

“Good, good.” Harry nodded. “...I'll take watch.”

“...watch?”

“...Until we know what happened. I don't want him out of my sight.”

\------

It was 19:00 when Merlin's steady, slow breathing on his oxygen mask became laboured and he groaned softly, thickly through his cut up lips and murmured.

Harry sat up immediately from his reclined position in the chair next to his friends bed and reached for the man's heavy, tube-threaded hand.

“...Merlin...Merlin...?” he said softly, leaning forwards.

Merlin's eyes tightened and then opened, blood-shot and sore but hungry for answers.

“...Ohhhh...” he sighed deeply as he realized where he was. “...No...no...no...no...”

Harry moved to stand and slowly sat on the side of his bed.

“...Afraid so, dear friend...You're the patient this time.”

Merlin closed his eyes, his fingers curling around Harry's comfortably.

“...B...ollocks....”

Harry gave an amused chuckle and smiled, still holding his hand in his own.

“Quite. And you'll be feeling that way for a while, whoever did this...well, let's say they were thorough.”

Merlin gave a soft wheeze in acknowledgement.

“...Aye...” he sighed softly. “...Tha's...the...truth of it...” he winced and coughed dryly into the mask.

“...Get some sleep. You're perfectly safe now.”

Merlin didn't require a second prompting, his features rested, his heavy, purple eyelids covering his eyes.

  
  


  
  


It was 15:00 the following day when Harry finally got the answer to his question.

Having stayed over night to be near the Quartermaster, he was given the nod by the physician to speak to him.

Officially out of danger, he was now in for recovery until he was able to get around unassisted and had obviously managed to sweet-talk Morgana, ( _or whatever Merlin called 'sweet-talking'_ ) into fetching his green tartan pyjamas from his chambers instead of the flimsy paper gown.

Harry had to agree, they were the most uncomfortable things with a terrible draft somewhere unpleasant.

Sat besides his bed, a pot of tea on the bedside cabinet. Merlin sat, his face terribly bruised, but made all the more familiar by the presence of his familiar glasses that threw his black eyes into greater relief.

“...So...y'got my message then...?”

Harry smirked slightly.

“I did...Though, why did you put your distress-beacon receiver in my bloody eyeball?

And when did you do it? Has it always been there? You promised me that nothing strange was going into my prosthesis.”

Merlin sighed, smiling weakly.

“I suspected somethin' amiss th'night before your eye went offline. 'The bunker'...In London, the security feed had been scrambled for six nights in a row. Same time, every night. Bang on 19:24 until 20:25.” he shrugged. “At first I put it down to somethin' and nothin'...some faulty connection or something. But the specifics of it didnae sit well with me... It seemed a bit...too close to home.

I didn't know who I could trust. But I knew I could trust you...”

Harry tilted his head.

“I cut off your eye remotely, and when you asked me to come fix it, I implanted the receiver into it. A wee little thing you'd never notice...and then I went back to HQ...”

“So why did you leave HQ, why not send one of the knights to investigate?”

“Harry. I'm the Quartermaster. If I sent knights to every single place that had something dodgy, we'd have no secrets...even amongst ourselves. I take pride in my security.”

“It was the perfect lure. Did you consider that?”

“...That's what I thought.” Merlin admitted. “...Hence the fail safe in your eye.”

He sighed, coughing as he held his ribs.

“...Not sure how much they knew about me, but enough to know that I was bloody useful. They must have been watching the place for months. Had people stationed on it. Must have known that messing with the security would have got me down there. Probably had me down as Mi5, or something.”

“Do you know who they were...?”

“Not a clue. Not that skilled. Their interrogation skills were pathetic and they seemed to ask pathetically basic questions.”

Harry's eyes moved over the bruising on his friend's neck and head and felt the urge to just ask something...rather important.

“...I take it that you didn't--”

“Don't insult me, Harry.” Merlin replied instantly, taking a sip of tea.

“...I apologize.” Harry replied immediately.

Merlin swallowed his tea.

“...Thanks for sending someone to find me.”

“You didn't give me much of a choice...my bloody eye was vibrating against my plate.”

“...Well, you're hardly the most perceptive of chaps, Harry...Had t'be sure.”

“Oh?” Harry asked, raising an eyebrow at his beaten friend.

Merlin's dry lips split into a smile that threatened to burst the cut.

_“...Hows Eggsy...?”_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Posted with kind permission from Mannersmademan.tumblr.com


End file.
